Hello, and welcome to the Ocado Analyst Call. Please note, this call is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you over to Hannah Gibson to begin today's conference. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. This is Hannah Gibson, CEO of Ocado Retail. The key message from today's Q3 trading statement is that we returned to positive volume growth in the last month of the quarter, ahead of our original expectations. That we delivered a return to volume growth earlier than we had guided reflects the hard work of everyone at Ocado and the progress we have made this year on all fronts, from fine-tuning our service levels, broadening the range, and investing in value for our customers. This is really important because volume recovery at Ocado Retail will help grow profitability as we use the capacity we already have available. You will recall hearing me at the beginning of the year talking about our perfect execution strategy at the heart of a new plan to take Ocado forward and drive the growth online. This is about making sure every element of our customer proposition and our operating model is at its best. You can see in this quarter what perfect execution means in practical terms. Following the launch of the Ocado Price Promise earlier this year, we've gone live with three price drops, lowering the prices of more than 650 products. These received a positive response from customers. In addition, the number of perfect deliveries we make, which is deliveries on time and in full, remain at consistently higher levels than last year. This quarter, we've also stepped up product availability to further improve customer experience. We're making good progress, but we want to go even further. The good news is that these efforts are achieving results, with revenue growing faster in Q3 than in H1, and a return to positive volume growth in the last month of the quarter. I said in January that Q3 comparisons were going to be challenging, given the customer acquisition in this period last year. So I'm pleased with the performance the team delivered, which sets us up well for Q4 and producing the growth we said we would deliver for the full year. Let me share with you some of the highlights from the numbers. Revenue grew 7.2% in the quarter. Average orders per week were up 1.9% year-over-year to 381,000, lacking a strong acquisition push this time last year. Active customers reached 961,000 at the end of Q3, slightly up year-over-year, with continued good growth in mature customers. Our average basket value was up 4.2%, while basket size, i.e., the number of items, remained broadly stable quarter-on-quarter at 44 items per order. Volumes grew in the last month of the quarter, as I referred to earlier. Our average selling price increased 8.4% year-on-year, which continues to be significantly below the overall grocery market inflation, as we continue to do all we can to mitigate inflation for our customers. Taken together, increasing customer numbers and a higher basket value mean faster growth in Q3 compared to H1, a trend which underpins our confidence in delivering our FY 2023 guidance of mid-single revenue growth and marginally positive EBITDA. The progress we've made with perfect execution gives us strong foundations to build on into next year, and we have a lot of opportunity to keep raising the bar for our customers, delivering more, more value and convenience as well. There's a lot of excitement happening in the business today that differentiates Ocado Retail, from the improvements we're making to the shopping experience to the exciting new range of stores, suppliers, and ranges that we're launching. These plans include making the most of the product and customer opportunities with M&S and realizing the benefits of the state-of-the-art Ocado Re:imagined technology, which you can see at our brand new robotics performance center that opened today in Luton. As a reminder, Luton CFC will be able to achieve productivity almost double that of Hatfield CFC. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the great team at Ocado for their relentless focus on the needs of our customers, especially through the challenges of the cost of living crisis. We'll talk more about the next stage of our plan at the end of the year, but I'm happy with the momentum heading into Q4. We're on track to deliver what we said we would do this year, with 2023 guidance unchanged. Let's go to questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, that is star one to ask a question today. Our first question today comes from Luke Holbrook from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. I've got a couple of questions just from my side. First is just on the M&S contingent payment. Given we're only about two months away from the end of the financial year, I just wanted to get a sense of your expectations on whether you expect to receive any payment or not. And just the second one is just on the Hatfield closure. My understanding is that it is being mothballed rather than completely closed. Am I right in thinking that the Ocado Group is still expecting to receive fees from the joint venture for that facility? And if so, when will it be completely shut down? Thank you. Thanks for the questions. So on the first one, conversations between Ocado Group and M&S are continuing. Actually, this is an Ocado Retail call. We're not going to be talking any further about the contingent consideration. On your second question, in terms of Hatfield and exactly as I said, we're obviously opening Luton today, and we are, you know, transferring volume. We're transferring the volume from Hatfield to other sites and now to Luton as well. In terms of the future for Hatfield, we're considering a number of options. We're not, you know, going to share any of that at this stage. Actually, in terms of the... If you think about it, a volume shift that I sort of talked about in transferring to other sites, and so we'll continue to pay the fee for the volume that we've got. ... Okay, thank you. So no timing, I guess, on when that fee would stop, but it might be when M&S gain control next year, potentially? I wouldn't agree with that last statement. It would be, there is no, there is no further. Okay. There's no news on any changes to fees. Thank you. Thank you. We're now moving on to Sreedhar Mahamkali from UBS. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Couple of quick ones actually. Can you talk a little bit around how you see the ASPs trending into Q4 from the current sort of 8% or so that can be run rate for the line now? I'm sorry, you're very quiet actually. Do you mind just repeating that question? I couldn't hear exactly what you were saying. Yeah, of course, of course. Can you hear me better now? That's a bit better. Thank you. Okay, okay, cool. Really the question is about ASPs as we head into Q4 and next year. I mean, we're running at about 8% or so higher prices. Do you see that sustaining into Q4? And do you have a view on where we might be next year? That's the first one. Also, just when you're talking about, if you could also give a bit of a market context in terms of where you are seeing. I think you've talked about inflating well below market, if you could talk about that a little bit more. That's the first one. Secondly, I think you, you've previously highlighted in Q3, the slower customer growth, because of marketing campaign last year. Is there anything we should be looking out for when it comes to Q4? Thank you. Thanks for your question. So on the first related to ASPs, I, I think on this one, you know, generally across the market, there is a view that inflation overall in terms of market complex is going to continue to come down. I think it's fair to say any estimates will certainly be wrong to some extent, but, you know, if you look at the IGD, they're saying it'll probably get down to kind of zero by summer next year. We've seen consistently that we've inflated behind the market. Obviously, you know, we expect that to continue as this year plays out. So expect inflation to continue to reduce. I think it's too hard to call today to say exactly how that's going to play out across the rest of this year. So that, that's kind of it in answer to the first one. And just to kind of restate what I mentioned in the statement earlier, obviously, we are, you know, tuned to invest more in value and in more for customers. So obviously the big price drops we've already started, we're planning to do more of that, to invest in value for our customers as well, to make sure that we are passing on as much value to the consumer as possible. So that's my first point. On the second point, exactly right. You're right to call out that, you know, in Q3 this year, we were, we're lapping a period last year where we did a huge amount of new customer acquisition. As you can see in the RNS, we've actually stated that on the mature customer growth year-on-year was at 6.6%. So we could see kind of the base improving on mature customers, which is good to see. Going into Q4, we expect it to be, you know, normalizing to not have those comps as we've had in Q3. So I'd expect to kind of return to normal service going into Q4. Sorry, just a very quick follow-up. In terms of the volume growth that you referred to, was that in any particular category that you wanted to highlight what was happening there? And I think just generally- Yeah. Sorry, very quickly then generally- Yeah. Is that volume growth, sort of do you think that will offset the lower inflation as we head into next year so that your top line equation still remains what it is? I know it's a bit early, but any thought will be super helpful. So the way I think about volume growth, slightly different than you laid out. Actually, what's going on there in terms of return to volume growth is a couple of different factors at play. On the one hand, you've got order growth increasing, which obviously on the one hand means we've got more items coming through the doors. On the second hand, we've also seen basket size stabilizing more, so there's less of a delta year on year from a basket size perspective. And then in terms of the orders, that actually splits down into two things. You know, we've got more customers in the door, which we talk about in terms of customer base, but also in terms of frequency. And we've seen frequency, you know, return to healthy levels as well. So those three factors of customer base, frequency, and basket size overall that are meaning that now we're kind of going back into volume growth, and it's a combined effect of all those three things coming together at the right time, which means that we've returned to volume growth earlier than expected. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have Andrew Gwynn from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, Hannah. Sorry, two questions. Firstly, just on that declining basket size, just help us understand, I think sequentially you were down slightly, so 44 versus 45 items, and it seems to continue a little bit of a trend. Just help us understand what's happening there. And then the second question, just on Ocado Zoom, it does seem to be the case it's growing slower than Ocado.com, but that's very loose math. So, just a comment on Ocado Zoom would be appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. On basket size, actually what you can see if you track it over the last number of quarters, that the gap year-on-year is narrowing, right? So we have been strongly over previous quarters, lapping what has been, you know, previous COVID impact to basket sizes, with people going out less, people at home more. And actually what we've seen, you know, as we go through this year, we've narrowed that gap. It's fair to say as well, we did have, you know, in Q4, going to Q1 last year, obviously, cost of living crisis was at a higher peak, and we saw that as ASP increased at the end of last year, that actually that did have an effect on basket. Actually, since about November, December, we've seen basket sizes relatively stable and pretty flat, despite the ongoing market inflation that's gone on. That said, obviously, we've still got, you know, the rest of the year to play out, but actually we've certainly seen that gap has narrowed and year-on-year it feels we're getting to a more stable position now. On your second question on Zoom, the comparison isn't quite like for like, if that helps, because Zoom is obviously in a specific number of catchment areas and postcodes, so the opportunities for growth is active in, let's say, Zoopla.com or ocado.com, which obviously covers a broader range. We've got, you know, four sites for main are growing strongly, you know, year-on-year growth is a very high percentage numbers, actually. So it, it's not quite the same comparison as other Ocado.com. In the particular areas in which they're live, they do have a strong representation and good volume share, versus Ocado.com. So, definitely growing materially ahead of the group of Ocado.com? Ocado, Ocado Zoom in the catchments in which they are, especially if you think about London, yeah, those sites are growing strongly. Okay, okay, thank you very much. Thank you. And now we're moving on to a question from Nick Coulter of Citi. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thank you so keen. My question, I have three, maybe if I go one at a time. So firstly, just to come back to Hatfield, possibly to get a sense of how the capacity faded out of the Hatfield, please, over what time period that trends to zero? Thank you. Hi, Nick. Yeah, so to answer your first question, we're expecting Hatfield volumes really to stop over the coming weeks, so very short term. And from a capacity perspective, you know, we will be operating at, the end of this week, closer to the end of this year, sorry, closer to 75% of capacity that we've got, as we guided you at the half year. That's great. And then, on Luton, how many modules do you open up with, please? And what's the, kind of, the maximum UPH you can run with it if that's two or three modules? Thanks. In terms of Luton, we are ramping Luton at the fastest we've ramped any CFC. Obviously, you know, that's also because we are transferring a lot of volume across from Hatfield directly. We expect the site to be operating within half of its capacity in the coming months. You know, Luton has the capacity to scale up to around 65,000 orders a week, but I'd say we'll be getting to about half of that and pretty soon. In terms of UPH, you know, over all the sites in due course, we'll be able to serve, you know, north of 300 UPH. Obviously, to start with, as we ramp and as is normal with sites, you have a slightly lower UPH to start. We will also be ramping up the level of on-grid and off-grid pick we've got in that facility. So, you know, again, that will be ramping up over the course of the next year or so. And so again, that will drive that productivity up as well. So you open with five or six modules live, then. Is that what you're saying for, for Luton? Or do you start with two or three? Sorry, just to- Just, John, just unpicking the kind of question. Are you saying have we installed the capacity, or are you asking about whether we've got engineering running? I'm just trying to unpicking what you're trying to get out of here. Well, I guess I'm asking, is the capacity there, therefore, are you paying a fee on the 5 or 6 modules for Luton? And then, yes, how does it ramp up, I guess, is... So yeah, both elements of your unpick, so to speak, please. Okay, so we will be, we'll be ramping Luton, as I say, pretty quickly, and we expect it to get to, you know, close to full capacity. So we will be paying the fees for what capacity we're using. You know, I'll be assuming it would be a significant portion of that, if not all. I think that hopefully answers your question broadly. That's helpful, I think. And then last one, if I may, please. Just on execution cost discipline, could you talk about the startup costs that you'll see from the Luton CFC, please? In terms of ramping the site, obviously, as you ramp that site, the UPH is clearly a big factor in terms of that site ramp. Because we're ramping it faster than any other site, we expect that improvement in cost base to be better than any other site we've ramped before. We wouldn't release kind of further specific details on a CFC basis at a cost level. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. A brief reminder, that is star one for your questions today. We're now moving to Alex Mishurov of KPS. Please go ahead. My, my question is asked already. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So again, as a brief reminder, that is star one for your questions today. There appears to be no further questions at this time, Ms. Gibson. Okay, thank you very much, everyone. That concludes our call. We'll give the next update on sales with our Q4 trading statement on the 16th of January 2024. Thank you very much, and see you all then.